By Claudio Schuftan, MD*
The more unequal the power imbalance the greater the oppression and the greater the abuses of human rights.
Politics is what we do (or don’t), politics is what we create, politics is what we work for, what we hope for and what we dare to imagine. (Paul Wellstone).
Power displays with certain attributes (wealth, force, manipulative financial know-how). A powerful man stripped of these attributes looks beaten and trodden. (Leonardo Padura)
1. The perennial political, social and cultural domination of the industrialized countries is the result of an unequal distribution of power under which those who do not have power, or have much less power, see their life expectations limited or destroyed and their human rights (HR) violated by the more powerful. This heavy-handedness manifests itself in different ways: from discrimination to exclusion, from marginalization to the physical, psychological and/or cultural extermination and from demonization to invisibilization.
2. All these forms of domination can be reduced to one only: oppression. Societies with longstanding power imbalances are actually societies divided between oppressors and oppressed. The factors at the very base of domination vary from period to period. In modern times, let us say ever since the sixteenth century, the three main factors of domination have been: capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy. We actually live in capitalist, colonialist and patriarchal societies. To wage a successful resistance against these forms of domination we have to wage anti-capitalist, anti-colonial and anti-patriarchal struggles simultaneously.
3. From this historical fact it follows that the advances have been, and will be, minimal if, as we have experienced, the domination elements remain united andthe opposition remains divided. The potentials of liberal democracy to respond to the aspirations and the HR of the oppressed and discriminated populations have always been very limited, and this limitation has become more and more serious in recent times.
4. Everywhere, grassroots democratic movements are being strangled by antidemocratic forces and, in some countries, dictatorships. In today’s world,democracy is being hijacked by powerful economic forces that are anything but democratic. Democracy today thus serves the imperial interests and is one of its instruments. Imperial interventions to destabilize grassroots democratic processes, including struggles for HR, are well documented. (The above paragraph adapted from Boaventura de Sousa Santos)
Power politics drive policies
5. As a result of this drive, it is the public that ought to drive the political! All sectors must be politically active in order to affect the development and implementation of public policies, in our case related to HR –including academia and the knowledge it brings. (Keith Martin) Why? Because, otherwise, the ones with the purse end up making policy. Therefore, understanding of the power sources involved in decision-making and their respective negotiation capacity in policy development must not be ignored in the pursuit of transformative change and sustained improvement in HR work, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. (A. Koduah)
6. The politically powerful use different ways to alter our perceptions so as to make themselves socially and politically acceptable. It is when those mechanisms fail them that tyranny starts, e.g., criminalizing opponents and HR defenders.(i) Power continuously tests social structures and individuals using a distorted conception of what is right and wrong and what is good and bad. It practically never really responds to any call for morality and the respect of HR.(Alberto Acosta) When powerful political groups consistently operate in a certain way, the ways they act not only become ‘the norm’ for its members, but they demand the same acceptance from others. The rationale is that it is the obligation of every individual active in the group to assimilate his or her behavior to that of the group, i.e., adapt themselves to the behavior of the whole to which he or she belongs. The norm then becomes the collective way of behaving and the abnormal is any action that tries to subvert such behavioral practices. (Manuel Acunia) [Think Trump?].
(i): Is it true that a nation that chooses to live under a tyranny instead of confronting the risks of opposing it deserves all tyrannies?
- Demagoguery still seems to work:Demagogues sell supremacy and not equality, sow suspicion rather than calm, and hurl enmity against defined categories of people who are vulnerable –easy scapegoats deserving their hatred. This brand of politician, champions at constructing ambiguity, seem more intent on profiting from the genuine fear of specific constituencies than promoting care for the welfare and the HR of the whole. These extreme practitioners of a thin agendaget away with dismissing many of today’s international laws, including HR law. And because, to the non-lawyer, the system of international law is so complicated, i.e., the HR system so indecipherable to many laypersons, it is hard to rally the general public against demagogues since the public does unfortunately not always see any immediate threat to themselves.
And so do dictatorships: Dictators do not entertain their own or others’ doubts; their judgments are as categorical as the adjectives they use. Dictators function as owners of a destiny and give themselves the right to decide on the lives of those who dissent with them. Valid arguments seldom have served/serve to sway their decisions.
- Many politicians,for whom economic, social and cultural rights mean little or nothing, are indifferent to the consequences of economic austerity on the have-nots. They view HR only as an irritating obstacle for the expediency they seek for their initiatives. For yet other politicians, mere indifference is not enough; their rejection of the HR agenda is expressed in terms replete with their utter contempt for the have-nots.
9. Only very few politicians have the courage to accept their actual levels of talent.
10. Hope also lies with the most courageous of us: the HR defenders, often victims of violations themselves who, armed with nothing beyond their minds and voices, are willing to sacrifice everything, including seeing their children and families affected, losing their work, even their lives, to safeguard rights –not just their own, but the rights of others. It is they who will save us, and we in turn must invest every effort in protecting them. We are still fighting, standing up. (Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights)
(iii): If only young people went more to vote, this would change the situation …this is the real historical loss of the left the world over. (Roberto Savio)
* Claudio Schuftan, M.D. (pediatrics and international health) was born in Chile and is currently based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where he works in public health and nutrition. .He has worked for UNICEF, WFP, the EU, the ADB, the UNU, , WHO, IFAD, SIDA, FINNIDA, the Peace Corps, FAO, CIDA, the WCC (Geneva) and several international NGOs. His positions have included serving as Long Term Adviser to the PHC Unit of the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Hanoi, Vietnam under a Sida Project (1995-97); Senior Adviser to the Dept. of Planning, MOH, Nairobi from 1988-93; and Resident Consultant in Food and Nutrition to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Planning, Yaounde, Cameroon (1981). He is currently an active member of the Steering Group of the People’s Health Movement and coordinated PHM’s global right to health campaign for 5 years.
schuftan@gmail.com
www.claudioschuftan.com
http://www.socialmedicine.org/2018/05/07/human-rights/yet-power-politics-politicians-human-rights-part-1-2/
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